


I'll Drive You To Places You'll Never Forget

by lisachan



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, M/M, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-18 04:11:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18113021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisachan/pseuds/lisachan
Summary: Carl's been staying at Sanctuary for quite a while, now. Negan has showed him around a few outposts run by the Saviors, but Carl didn't really like any of them, and asked for an outpost of his own to handle as he'd like, to show Negan there are different ways to obtain good results. Naturally, Negan told him he'd never let him have an outpost already run by someone else -- which means Carl has had to find one of his own.And he did.





	I'll Drive You To Places You'll Never Forget

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [An End Has A Start](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13428918) by [lisachan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisachan/pseuds/lisachan). 



> I've been wanting to write this sequel to my previous Carl/Negan fic since last year, and now I finally managed \o\ I'm happy about it - it gives me joy to write this story. This is what we deserved and was never given to us.   
> I recommend reading the previous one before starting this one, because things happening here might make no sense if you don't know what happened before first.
> 
> Written for [The Clash of the Writing Titans #9](https://www.landedifandom.net/tag/cow-t-9/), [Week 5](https://www.landedifandom.net/cowt9-week5/), Mission 2, prompt: "satisfaction".

He lets himself go on the mattress for a split second and right after that he’s already throwing his legs off the bed, ready to stand up and walk away, but Negan reaches out for him with a grunt and drags him back where he was, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

“Jesus fucking Christ, kid,” he groans, pressing Carl’s face into his own chest and keeping him there despite his protests and wiggling, “What are you, high on speed? Rest a second.”

“I can’t-- Negan, let me go!” he tries to free himself, “I’m gonna be late.”

“Please, _for what_? The end of the world already came, and for everything else there will always be time. Now stop flailing like a possessed idiot and _rest_ a second.”

Carl snorts, falling limp against him and taking a few seconds to calculate how long it’ll take to drive to Neverland and if there’s any chance he can make it to check on baby Zelda before she gets to sleep. Then he decides he can always go visit a little later, that way the boys and girls will have finished their chores for the day and perhaps he can make them pancakes tonight. They love breakfast for dinner.

“Okay… fine,” he surrenders, turning on his back and lying down next to Negan, looking at the ceiling, “I’ll stay. Half an hour. Maybe 40 minutes.”

“I am moved, Carl,” Negan says, putting a theatrical hand on his chest as he turns to look at him, “40 minutes of your precious time. Hit me, I wanna make sure I’m not dreamin’ right now.”

“Idiot,” Carl scoffs half a laughter, pushing him away weakly and then settling better beside him, “You’ve gotten clingy, old man. In the beginning it was all quickies and get-out-of-my-room-go-do-your-job-nows, all the time. Now you beg me to stay.”

“Yeah, it’s just that you have no idea how much respect I get from the guys for having such a young lover, it does wonders for my reputation.”

“I thought Lucille was the only one in charge of your reputation.”

“Ah, she’s not a jealous girl, she can share,” Negan grins, and then he props himself up on his elbows, turning once again to look at him. “You know who doesn’t know how to share, instead…?”

“Let me take a wild guess,” Carl chuckles, pushing back his hair and wrapping them up in a ponytail he doesn’t bother to tie, just to get them off his face, “You?”

“Bingo,” Negan admits with the same ease he’d use to admit he has a dick. Carl’s always been amused by his lack of shame – the way he talks about him with the other Saviors, the way he sometimes even parades him around, jokes about their relationship. He would’ve imagined a man like him to be ready to do everything in his power to keep such a thing hidden. Negan’s not interested in hiding anything, instead. He wants everything out in the open, all the time. “So, who is it?”

“Who’s who?”

“The person you have to run to.”

Carl rolls his eyes, sighing. “Does it have to be a person?”

“It must be a person ‘cause I’ve never seen anyone run as fast as you do if not for a good fuck.”

“I just came, man. You literally _just_ made me come. Why would I run chasing someone else?”

“I don’t know, you sixteen-year-old little minxes would stop at nothing to get another orgasm.”

“Shut up,” Carl actually laughs, turning on his stomach, “I’m not a little minx and I’m not running to a lover or anything else. Besides, everyone here is terrified of you, no one would dare.”

“No one _in here_ ,” Negan agrees, “But you’re constantly running off with that ridiculous posse of yours and I don’t know where you are, what you’re doing, who you’re with…”

“Jesus, stop,” Carl laughs again, hiding his face against the pillow and then shaking his head as he emerges from it, “You’re ridiculous. You know where I go when I leave. My outpost.”

“The famous Neverland,” Negan sits up, reaching out for the whiskey bottle and the glass on his nightstand. He pours some and offers the first taste to Carl, before swallowing the rest himself. “That no one’s seen yet.”

“That’s where you wanted to go right from the start,” Carl smiles and lies down on his back again, crossing his legs and then his arms behind his head, “You almost made me believe you were really jealous.”

Negan smiles and doesn’t comment on that, but he insists on Neverland. “If it was for me, kid, you know, I’d let you manage your shit your way. But it’s the guys, you see, they’re suspicious. They want to check the miracle place out.”

“Bullshit,” Carl smiles calmly. This is his eleventh month at the Sanctuary. He knows when he has to feel threatened, when he has to defend himself and when he can afford the luxury of knowing perfectly well that it doesn’t matter how disrespectful and cocky he’ll be, Negan won’t touch him with a finger. “You don’t give a shit about what the _guys_ think. _You_ want to see it. _You_ wanna check it out.”

“Kid, you’re stripping all romance away from this relationship with this reading my thoughts shit,” Negan laughs and pours himself another glassful of whiskey. This time, he doesn’t offer Carl anything, clear sign that he’s starting to get bothered. Carl sits up and crosses his legs, facing him like a grown-up before things get out of hand.

“Listen to me, old man,” he says, smiling confidently like the young cocky man Negan allowed him to be since the first day he stepped foot at the Sanctuary, “When you told me to find my outpost, you promised me as long as I harvested enough goods I could handle it as I wanted to, and that included that only me and my guys would be allowed to keep all relationships between the Saviors and Neverland. Those were my conditions and they aren’t changing.”

“Then we’re all in a shitload of luck, since I’m not asking you to change shit,” Negan grins, putting down the glass. He sits on the bed facing Carl, putting himself at his same level. “Now listen to _me_ , kid. I’ve been nothing but good and patient with you. And you know that. I never complained about how you handle things at Neverland.”

“Of course you didn’t, we produce more than Alexandria _and_ the Hilltop together.”

“Shut up and let me finish, cowboy,” Negan says, grabbing the hat from the feet of the bed and pressing it on top of Carl’s head, covering his eye. “I’ve never complained, but I don’t like secrets. I want to see things clearly – that’s the only way I know to be on top of things.”

“You know at least another one.”

“Don’t be a dirty mouth,” Negan smirks, “And I can assure you every time we fuck seeing things clearly is always included in the package.”

Carl pushes back the hat and laughs, and Negan laughs too, and the edge of the fight they had been walking on for the last five minutes disappears underneath their feet. “You’re the dirty mouth,” Carl chuckles, crossing his arms over his chest loosely. Then he sighs. “Okay, listen to me. You wanna come check Neverland up, you come. _You_. Alone.”

“Wise choice, little one,” Negan nods, finally getting off the bed, “I hope you said it because you realize that the time is now ripe for it.”

“No, I said it so that maybe you’ll shut up about it,” Carl chuckles, getting off the bed too and quickly starting to wear his clothes again.

Negan grins, dressing up at a slower pace. “Young kids, nowadays,” he scoffs, “They don’t know what respect is anymore.”

“Don’t mutter,” Carl says, passing by him and biting at his chin before moving out, “Not sexy. I’ll be waiting outside.”

Negan combs his hair back as he shakes his head, a laughter on his lips and a curse between his teeth. Kids. He had sworn he wouldn’t have anything to do with any of them anymore.

*

When Nathan sees him coming, he hops on his motorbike and then frowns as he spots Negan walking a few steps behind him. Carl gets to him first and hits him lightly on his nape, smirking. “Get that face off your face, Nat. The man’s coming with, today.”

If anything, that makes Nathan frown even more. It was Carl who brought him into the Saviors, a couple months after moving into the Sanctuary, after finding him stranded at the bottom of a walker trap, surrounded by rotting corpses. He had survived the fall with a few scratches and scrapes and had managed to kill all the walkers waiting for him, but he had been there four days already and he was on the verge of eating the corpses and drink their blood just to sate his hunger and thirst. Carl dragged him out of that hellhole and instantly wanted him for his own group, and Nathan only trusted him, from that moment on, in exchange for that.

Negan tries to be patient with the kid. He’s only seventeen, after all, he keeps saying between gritted teeth every time Nathan disrespects him or talks back to him. Carl thanks God Nathan’s at least smart enough to always put up those shows when it’s just the three of them and no other Savior’s in sight, because Carl knows damn well if he dared something like that in front of anyone else Negan wouldn’t think twice about melting his face off with a hot iron. He also knows Nathan’s age is just a pretext Negan uses to justify him for Carl, because Carl’s younger than him and, in his opinion, he’s way smarter already.

Carl knows that’s not true. As a matter of fact, he’s sure, one thousand percent sure, that Nathan’s smarter than him. He’s more reflective, more educated and tactically way wiser than Carl. He just has a problem with authority figures, that’s why he can’t stand Negan. He’s at ease with Carl because Carl’s more or less his age and he doesn’t mind being bossed around by a kid just like him. Anyone old enough to be a father, on the other hand, bothers him to no end. From the very few, but very significant things he told Carl about his father, Carl doesn’t have any trouble understanding why.

“What changed since yesterday?” Nathan asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Nothing, apparently, as I see you still haven’t learned to shut that shit mouth of yours, blondie,” Negan answers instead of Carl.

Carl sighs, rolling his eyes and staring for a second at the perfect blue sky above them. It’s a nice enough day. Not too hot, not too damp. The kids probably spent the whole afternoon picking strawberries and they’re gonna be in a great mood. If anything, they got lucky with the day life chose to have this showdown.

Nathan chooses to ignore Negan’s remark, and keeps staring at Carl. “You said only us were allowed in Neverland.”

“Still true,” Carl tries to cut the argument short, straddling his own motorbike, parked next to Nathan’s, “This is an exception.”

“That’s how chaos starts,” Nathan frowns, “With exceptions.”

“Why are you being paranoid again?”

The new voice allows Carl to breathe a sigh of relief. He doesn’t like it when Negan, Nathan and him are alone together for too long. The tension between Nathan and Negan is constantly threatening to get out of control, and he’ll be thankful for anything that will allow that not to happen.

In this case, that thing is Emily. She passes by Nathan, side-eyeing him as usual, and stops in front of her own bike, checking it up as she always does when they’re about to take the road. She’s in love with the freaking thing, Carl thinks the moment it falls apart she’ll have a nervous breakdown. And frankly, the thing is so ancient it might be a matter of weeks, if not days.

Carl found her six months ago, on the road. She was already riding it, back then. She calls it Cassie, like her ex, who she watched getting eaten alive a few weeks after all hell broke loose in Atlanta. She refuses to say how that happened but Carl knows it’s only a matter of time. Some weights you just can’t carry forever on your own. It’s just that Emily’s a closed-off person, she probably was before the apocalypse too. She doesn’t necessarily like to share. When Carl found her, riding with her was her pug, Monique. She was seated in the sidecar, her tongue hanging out in the sandy wind, not a damn worry in the entire world. First thing Carl asked Emily was “how the fuck did you manage to get to this point without eating her?”. Emily’s answer was “come on, she’s fucking _repulsive_ , how the fuck am I supposed to put her in my mouth?”. Carl had elected her his favorite person in the world right after that.

“I’m not being paranoid,” Nathan answers, frowning deeply. He’s one of those people who frown a lot. He’s got a deep line between his eyebrows already, making him look a couple years older than he truly is. “I’m never paranoid.”

“Paranoid’s your second name,” Emily answers, hopping on Cassie. Monique won’t be riding with them, today, she can’t bring her with when they need the sidecar for the fourth element of their party – who Carl imagines still being on his merry way to their meeting point, taking his time, as per usual. “And if you had a third, it’d be pain in the ass.”

Negan laughs, patting his knees with both hands and then settling on Carl’s ride, behind him. “Nice one,” he says. He loves Emily, naturally. She’s just the kind of person he would fall for. Focused, driven, hell bent on surviving no matter what. Practical and a lighthearted switcher when the occasion demands it. Nathan’s opposite, basically. With boobs, of course. Carl’s pretty sure if she hadn’t been fifteen Negan would’ve wanted her for a wife. (They actually discussed it. Negan told him he’s not marrying minors. Carl asked him what about them, then. Negan answered with a smirk, “I ain’t marryin’ you, kid”.)

“Did I miss all the fun as usual?” Parker finally appears, passing through the gates and stopping by the sidecar. He’s the only one who doesn’t ride among them, and also the only one who was part of the Saviors before Carl joined them. He pushes his glasses up on his nose and climbs on the sidecar, getting comfortable in it. Carl notices he’s not carrying a gun and hands him one of his own. Parker knows how to fight, he just doesn’t like to. After all, it’s not for his fighting skills Carl wanted him in his team. He’s a freaking genius, an Asian stereotype through and through. He’s the oldest of them and the only one who managed to get a proper college education before the apocalypse. Proper graduated engineer, this one. Negan values him and Carl values him even more. He’s done wonders in Neverland.

“You almost missed a historical change,” Emily updates him, starting Cassie’s engine, “Negan’s coming with us, today.”

Parker turns to look at Carl and studies him intently in silence for a few seconds, his dark hair falling on his glasses. “How come?” he asks curiously.

Carl shrugs.

“I asked,” Negan answers, “Is that really so hard to believe?”

“Frankly, yes,” Parker nods, “No offense, but you’ve been asking for months and he’s always said no.”

“It’s just time,” Carl finally says, starting his motorbike too, “Now quit asking about it. He’s coming. I decided. Nothing’s changed. Let’s get to it.”

He’s the first to take the road, and, naturally, all the others follow.

Just like they did the first time he brought them there.

*

He found Neverland six months after moving into the Sanctuary. By then, Negan had already managed to take him on a very interesting tour through all the outposts held by his deputies, and Carl hadn’t found a single thing he liked about it. “If this was your idea of converting me to your cause, you failed,” Carl had said bitterly upon returning back to Sanctuary. Visibly upset, Negan had asked why. Carl had simply answered he didn’t think terror to be the right tool to enhance production. “Fine, then,” Negan had said, “Tell me how you’d do it.” To which Carl had answered he’d have shown him when he’d let him have his own outpost.

Naturally, Negan wouldn't even hear about it, not right away. Too soon, he kept saying. You're too young. Giving you a community to manage would be suicide. Carl had found it pretty offensive. He thought Negan appreciated his skills – why else would he want him there?

With the usual unbearable cockiness, Negan had told him not to confuse appreciation with gullibility. “I ain't giving you one of my communities, kid,” he had said, “I've fought and bled to get each and every one of them, men have died to hold them and people work their assess off to handle them for me. You want one for yourself, you find one of your own. Then you can show me how good you are with it.”

It had become a personal matter, a matter of principle. No matter how much he liked him, Negan still saw him as a kid. He was a bet that could've amounted to something _in the future_ , but to him he was nothing _right now_ , and Carl was tired of being something that maybe could've become something else some other day. He wanted to be _someone_ and he wanted to be it _today_.

So he had started searching. And luck had been with him – as Negan wouldn't have failed to underline later, that was one of the things he appreciated the most about him. Guts and brains aren't enough, in a world of walkers they're just things that can be eaten. Luck, though. That cannot count as food.

He had found the kids in the late afternoon after a full day of wandering about, attracted by the cries of the baby. They were panicked, naturally, when he showed up. The trailer wasn't even locked up and as he opened the door to enter he found a red-haired boy with his arm raised, a pillow held in a fist clutched so tight all his knuckles were white as snow, ready to silence that cry forever.

“I'm not a walker,” he had said, speaking right away so that all the boys and girls could be sure he was a person, “Walkers don't open doors. Chill and put down that pillow, boy.”

The kid had stared at him in utter disbelief, his arm shaking while all his companions scurried to the back of the trailer, piling up one on top of the other in an attempt to make themselves bigger by merging into one huge mass of trembling flesh.

“If she doesn't stop crying,” the kid had said, “She's gonna make them come.”

“So let's make her stop crying,” Carl had simply said, walking closer to the baby girl lying at the bottom of a wrecked cradle, her tiny red fists swinging desperately in the air. “When did she eat last?”

“Half an hour ago,” the boy had answered responsibly. And then he had added, with a pinch of pride, “We have formula, you know.”

“Of course you do,” Carl had smiled, “Is she clean?”

“I cleaned her up ten minutes ago,” another boy said, a tiny, fragile, silver-haired thing from the mass at the back of the trailer, “She's just grumpy, sometimes she gets like that.”

“I see,” Carl had nodded, and he had held her up in his arms. “What's her name?”

“Zelda,” the first boy had answered.

“Good name,” Carl had said.

“We gave it to her,” a girl had said proudly, “Her mom didn't have the time.”

Carl had taken a quick look around. He had seen the corpses, her head broken in half like a watermelon. “It's okay,” he had said, “Let me take care of it.”

He knew he had a very small window of time to silence the baby girl before the walkers came calling. He had to fix the situation. There were roughly twenty kids in that trailer. He had to do something.

He brought the baby girl to his chest and softly started singing with his eyes closed. _You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray. You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you, please don’t take my sunshine away_.

It had been ugly. Pictures of his mom singing gently to him when she wanted to calm him down, before the apocalypse or immediately after, had started mixing, in his mind, with pictures of Negan swinging Lucille in circles while he himself sang during one of the saddest and most terrifying moments of his life, the whole time he sang the baby to sleep, and it hadn’t been pretty in the slightest.

He had to admit for the first time with himself, if with anyone else, that despite months of mutually exclusive, intense and satisfactory relationship with the man, he still had scars Negan had caused him and that would’ve probably never properly heal – such as it’s in the nature of scars. The skin mends itself as it can, but it’s always going to be too sensitive, or never enough, for the rest of forever.

He had probably fallen for Negan, and he was probably well reciprocated in that respect, but Negan would forever be the man who made his mom’s favorite lullaby terrifying for him, and that was a notion he would have to interiorize and move forward from, if possible at all.

Understanding that, though, was enough introspective work for that day, he had more important things to think of. Zelda had fallen asleep and the kids had started to look at him with huge amazed eyes. He could recognize that look. He imagined Shane must’ve felt the same way he himself was feeling now, back when it was Carl looking at him that way.

He had put baby Zelda back down on her crib and he had taken a look outside, to check the surroundings. “No walkers in sight,” he had said, walking back into the trailer and locking the door behind himself, “We were lucky. Are there any injured here?”

He had cast a look at the terrified mass of kids in the back of the trailer. They had shaken and no one had answered, so he had turned back towards the redhead, pointing his thumb at the kid. “Any injured?” he had repeated.

The kid had shaken his head. Then, he had spoken. “You’re strong,” he had said.

Carl had smiled and had sat down on the floor, his legs crossed, on the only clean spot on the floor. He had patted on the ground right before him, inviting the kid to sit opposite to him, and the kid had done it. Baby steps, he had thought to himself, I need to create a connection.

“Alright,” he had said, “Are you the boss here, kid?”

The kid had taken a look at his companions, and they had all nodded their heads fast. So he had turned back towards Carl. “Yes,” he had said, “My name’s Montoya. Who are you?”

“Carl Grimes,” he had held out his right hand for the kid to shake. Montoya had seemed pretty happy to be given the chance to do something like that – just like a proper adult. “Nice to meet you, Montoya. D’you wanna tell me what the hell happened here?”

In the half hour that followed, Montoya had told him quite an incredible story, beginning almost two years before with two teachers, Miss Holly and Mr. Owen, one of whom was lying dead on the floor, who had managed to help a whole class of twenty-six fifth-graders escape an infested school in Five Points, Atlanta. They had ran from the city and they had wandered the countryside, fleeing from abandoned house to abandoned house, from ghost neighborhood to ghost neighborhood, and finally from one wrecked warehouse to the other searching for shelter while the world outside slowly disintegrated, all the while keeping all those kids alive, well-fed and healthy.

Miss Holly and Mr. Owen had taken turns scavenging for food and meds, they had taken turns to sleep, to patrol the surroundings of whatever shelter they were momentarily living in, even to eat, all to make sure the kids were always watched, that they were always safe.

They had also taken turns falling in love. First, Mr. Owen, then, Miss Holly. They had finally synchronized their schedule when they had found themselves wrapped in a tight hug all the kids had translated into common “mom and dad stuff” pretty easily, and the fruit of that synchronization lied asleep at the bottom of a wrecked crib, now.

“Okay,” Carl had nodded, taking the whole story in, “But how did she end up like that?”

“An infection,” Montoya had explained plainly, “She caught it after Zelda came. She fell sick quick. Mr. Owen found meds, for a while, to keep her okay enough, but when they were over she fell asleep, and when she woke up she tried to eat Zelda.”

Carl had nodded again. “Who did it?”

Montoya had looked at his classmates. One of them, a tall girl who seemed slightly older than the others, with long black hair and dark eyes, had lifted her hand. “I didn’t want to,” the girl said, looking down, “I just wanted her to stop.”

“Now, don’t be silly,” Carl had patted on the ground next to himself and the girl had come running. So had done all the others, sitting in a messy circle all around him. “What’s your name?”

“Luna.”

“Hi, Luna. Don’t say you didn’t want to kill Miss Holly. You did, I know.”

Luna had stubbornly looked down. “She wanted to eat Zelda. I couldn’t let her.”

“Of course you couldn’t. You made a choice and it was the right one.” He had reached out for her, placing both hands on her fragile shoulders, shaking her gently to make her look up. “You hear me, Luna? You did exactly what you had to do, and you were very brave. Thanks to you, Zelda’s still alive and so’s the rest of you. Have you all thanked Luna for her hard work?” An uncertain chorus of weak _thank yous_ had vibrated in the still air of the trailer. “I couldn’t quite hear you,” Carl had repeated, frowning a little, “Thank you, Luna, for saving us all!” he said emphatically.

“Thank you, Luna!” Montoya had said right away.

“Thank you!” another girl had echoed, throwing her arms around Luna’s shoulders and squeezing her tightly, “Thank you for saving us!”

Carl had smiled, watching Luna starting to cry silently to release some tension while all the other kids took turns in comforting and hugging her.

The group was cohese. It was united and strong. One problem had been fixed. He still had a hundred thousand, more or less, to fix.

“Where is Mr. Owen?” he had asked.

The silver-haired boy from before had spoken to him again. “He went out to find new meds for Miss Holly, but he hasn’t come back yet,” he had said.

“I see,” Carl had nodded, “Your name?”

“Gabriel.”

“Nice to meet you, Gabriel. When’s the last time you’ve seen Mr. Owen?”

Gabriel and Montoya had exchanged a long look that was, in itself, enough of an answer already. Then, Gabriel had uttered two simple words: “Weeks ago,” and Carl had known – the kids were alone.

Well, not anymore.

He had stood up, patting dust off his pants and then putting both hands on his own hips, taking a long look at the children. They were all between ten and eleven years old. They didn’t seem weak, they were unkempt but not dirty, their clothes were worn out but not irreparably damaged and they all seemed pretty confident that they could survive the bastard world surrounding them, at least from inside that trailer.

Carl just had to convince them they could do the same on the outside too. And they could've been the very founding fathers of his soon-to-be outpost.

“Okay, kids, I’m sorry to break it to you but I think most of you got that already: Mr. Owen isn’t coming back, Miss Holly’s dead and baby Zelda’s counting on you to keep her alive. Adults won’t help you, but you have me, now. I think you’re great, you’re strong and smart enough to have survived hell by yourselves up to now, but it’s time to step up and become something greater. To do so, we’re going to become buzzing bees.”

The children had shared a puzzled look, and then Montoya had been the first to speak. “Bees?”

“Yes,” Carl had nodded confidently, “Bees have the most efficient social structure in nature. They are organized for success, and success, to them, is the colony’s survival. We want this colony to survive, don’t we?”

“Yes!” the children had answered vigorously.

“Good!” Carl had nodded enthusiastically, “Then we need to divide in groups, just like the bees. I need a Queen Bee who’s going to stay here and take care of the baby. That’s going to be Luna, because she has proven that there’s nothing she won’t do to make sure Zelda survives, and that’s exactly what we want our Queen Bee to be: ready for anything, brave and strong. Do we all agree?”

Naturally, all the children had agreed, and, trusted by the whole group, Luna had taken her place next to the crib, her back straight and her shoulders squared under the weight of responsibility.

“There are two more kinds of bees,” Carl had gone on, counting on his fingers, “Worker Bees and Nurse Bees. Worker Bees make sure the colony’s productive and well-functioning,” he had explained, simplifying much, knowingly, but also knowing it had to be done if he wanted the kids engaged and not bored to death, “While Nurse Bees make sure everyone’s fed and well. Now, of course we need to apply this to our own colony, so our work will be a little different than the bees’ one. We’ll split you in two groups: Workers will stay here, help the Queen out with her task and work on the colony’s structure to make it efficient and productive, while the Nurses will go out and scavenge for food.” He had detected the terrified look some of the kids had thrown him, and he had smiled encouragingly. “I’ll be with the Nurses, in the beginning. I’ll teach them all I know. I survived out there for years, often by myself. I was a child when this whole mess started, but I’m all grown-up now, and I’m strong, aren’t I? You said it yourself, Montoya.”

“Yes,” Montoya had nodded slowly, “I think you are.”

“And I am,” Carl had nodded too, “I can promise you all we will turn this trailer into a real house. I’ll help you get stronger. I’ll help you find good food and I’ll help you produce your own in a little while. You’ll have a farm, gardens and orchards – and animals, if we’re lucky enough. But there are two things I need you to do, and I can tell you the second only if you agree with the first. Do you want to hear it?” He had waited to see all the kids nod, and then he had spoken again. “Very well,” he had said, “Then the first thing I need you to do is trust me. And you have to trust me completely. You have to trust that if I tell you you’ll be safe, you will be. But that’s easy, isn’t it?” he had smiled, “There are harder things. Like, for example, trust me all the same when I tell you to do something that will be dangerous, but that has to be done nonetheless. Can you trust me then, too?”

The kids had fallen into an eerie silence, and Carl had thought _okay, I lost them_. It would have been a well-deserved loss – he had bet all that he had on a horse, it would’ve made sense to lose. But then one of the kids had spoken, a caramel-colored girl with two nice rounded ponytails by the sides of her head, so ruffled up they barely even looked like hair anymore. “You’re telling us that… you will ask us to do things that will put us in danger, but we will have to do them anyway because you said so, right?”

“Basically, yes. Name?”

“Morena.”

“Nice to meet you, Morena,” he had said. He wanted to tell every one of them introducing themselves that it was nice to meet them. It had been, after all. “Yes, that’s what I will ask you to do. I don’t want to force any of you to become a Nurse Bee, I would much rather like to only take volunteers. But you all need to know that Nurses are necessary, and so, if there are no volunteers, I will pick some of you myself to form a small group who will follow me outside. And I will ask them to follow me even if they’re scared, and even if some of them will die, because I said so. And you have to trust that everything I say, I say in your interest. Do you think you can do that, Morena?”

Morena had looked at him straightforwardly, in perfect silence, for almost a full minute, her hazelnut eyes fixed on Carl’s, studying him, his expression, his conviction. Then, she had nodded confidently. “I like that you’re honest with us,” she had said, “There’s a lot of death outside. We risk to die every day. We risk it in here too. So I’ll follow you out there. I want to be a Nurse Bee.”

Soon enough, six more kids had followed, and Carl had formed his first scavenging party. He had decided seven kids would be enough to begin. He would have preferred more – it would have been better to split the group exactly in half – but in the end seven wasn’t half a bad number of kids. He’d have had to make do. And he had had to make do with way less in the past – he could make it.

Over the course of the days that had followed, Carl had come back to the trailer every single day. He scavenged first, brought the kids something to eat, made sure they were all fine and then he took his Nurse Bees out to train them. He taught them how to kill, he taught them how to hunt for small animals, the taught them how to tell the differences between bad mushrooms and good mushrooms, bad berries and good berries, bad plants and good plants, and then he brought them back to the trailer where he helped them all clear the floor of the corpse and blood before it started stinking too much.

The kids were fearless. Guided by his hand they became tiny, deadly war machines. He could quickly tell apart bad hunters from good hunters, and divided the Nurse Bees into more groups as their numbers increased, ten first, fourteen soon after that. By the end of the first month he had nineteen kids of ten who could’ve killed a deer with their bare hands, and another seven home who were learning the ropes of farming and could’ve changed a diaper in their sleep. Kids who were not afraid to face walkers in combat. Kids who were trained in patrolling the area surrounding the trailer in night and day turns, to make sure nothing could come closer to their home unnoticed. Kids who asked him to help them set up traps on the outer border of the area they had decided to colonize, to make patrolling more efficient and safer. All that while their Queen Bee seemingly merged on a deeper level with the mind of baby Zelda, tuning her feelings with hers so to anticipate them and tend to her needs before she could even express them.

Silence, bravery, organization, practical skills. They had everything, mixed with a sense of loyalty and gratitude towards him that made them completely trustworthy, tireless and unstoppable. They had exceeded Carl’s expectations in all respects. By August, they had an orchard so heavy with red tomatoes the plants were curving like weak old gramps underneath their weight.

Watching the perfection of those tomatoes in utter disbelief, Carl had led the harvesting like he would have thrown a party. He had scavenged for sugar-charged soft drinks and had gathered all possible ingredients to make some cookies. The kids had appreciated and, by the end of the afternoon, with their tummies filled with sweets and their eyes heavy with tired satisfaction, they had sat down scattered all around the trailer and Carl had put the three big baskets of tomatoes on the floor, and it hadn’t been easy to explain them that more than half of the fruits of their labor would have to come with him, that night.

The kids had protested. Some of them had cried – even Montoya, who never did. Gabriel, who was in charge of all things house-and-farm-related, had stared at Carl with unmoving eyes and a stern expression and had asked for a reason, and Carl had decided to opt for complete honesty, believing it would pay. He had told them about Negan and the Sanctuary, he had told them about the organization of the outposts, and he had told them that, if they managed to prove themselves to be a productive and worthy outpost, the Sanctuary and Negan would have protected them, and help them when necessary.

The kids had understood – they had trusted him even when they couldn’t understand, actually. They had watched the tomatoes go, their eyes drying up fast.

On that very same night, Carl had brought the baskets home, announcing he had an outpost of his own and this was their first tribute. Negan had looked at him, blinking rapidly, and had asked him what the fuck was he talking about.

“I did what you said,” Carl had answered, shrugging, “You wouldn’t give me an already existing outpost to show you how I’d handle it, and I understand why. So I found one of my own. Seven months ago. This is the first result, and there’ll be more in time if you let me take care of it the way I want to.”

Negan had watched him silently for endless, countless seconds, and then he had burst into laughing, bending backwards in that swinging way that turned him into some sort of creepy clown if you didn’t look at his face. “You’re full of surprises,” he had said.

Carl had grinned. “That’s why you love me.”

Negan had smiled an honest smile that had made Carl’s heart flutter. “Indisputably true,” he had said, and just like that all of Carl’s scars had stopped itching and burning, and as he heard the unmistakable melody of _You are my sunshine_ echo in the background of his head he had known he had gotten his lullaby back. “What’s the name of the place?”

Carl had woken up from his ridiculous daydreaming all of a sudden, blinking as he looked at him. He hadn’t thought about it. “Neverland,” he had come up with in a matter of seconds.

“Funny,” Negan had grinned, “Where is it?”

Carl had swallowed. “Nowhere,” he had said.

It had taken him the rest of the night, two blowjobs and a wild fuck to convince Negan to let it go, but he had managed, in the end. He didn’t want anybody but his own people, people of his choice, to know where Neverland was. He wanted to be fully in charge of it and he wanted to do it his own way. Negan, with his overflowing, unstoppable personality, would’ve put in jeopardy all that he had managed to build in the last few days, and he couldn’t accept that. He loved the man, fuck, he did, but he couldn’t let him near his children, his precious buzzing bees. Not yet, at least.

Now, though, months have passed. It's been almost a full year since he’s been in charge of the place. Over the months he has asked Negan to trust him blindly about many things, including not only accepting the fact that people like Nathan and Emily could know where Neverland was when he couldn’t, but also allowing him to take Parker away for days in order to help his outpost grow. Together with Nathan and Emily, who love the kids and are deeply and wholeheartedly loved in return, Parker has helped building an irrigation system for the orchards, he’s helped building a proper bathroom for the kids, a proper kitchen. Starting from the basic skeleton of the trailer he has built a whole structure on top of it, that brought it closer to a home that it could have ever been had it stayed the way it was. He helped with fences and traps, he’s turned Neverland into his personal sandbox, challenging himself to build the same kind of systems he would build for adults making sure they were child-oriented, so that the kids could make use of them with or without Carl present.

If Neverland prospers, today, it’s thanks to Emily’s, Nathan’s and Parker’s work too. And, for being allowed to make use of them the way he did, he has to thank Negan.

So he guesses it’s true – it's just about time he shows the man the place.

When they arrive, and Carl stops at the wooden gates, Negan hops off the motorbike and takes a shocked look at the surroundings. Carl can see in his eyes that he can’t believe what he’s seeing, and it’s weirdly satisfactory.

“You gotta be shitting me, kid,” the man says, his breath suspended, “Did you build this?”

“With a little help from my friends,” he answers with a cocky smirk. Then he brings his fingers to his mouth and whistles softly. A single sharp whistle he muffles as he can against the palm of his hand, knowing that, in this silence, his buzzing bees will certainly hear him.

Of course, they do. He sees Ava’s little head pop up from above the wall the fence has been transformed into thanks to Parker's designs, and he waves at her. Negan follows his eyes but Ava’s faster than him and disappears behind the wall right away, leaving him no time to really see who he was waving at.

It's a matter of seconds – the gates open, pulled back by two of the kids, showing the farm inside. The trailer at the end of the makeshift driveway is surrounded by kids doing the most disparate things – some of them are tending to the orchard, some others are hanging freshly laundered clothes to dry, Gabriel’s feeding the chickens. Baby Zelda is sitting down on a pile of mud, covering herself in mess as she gargles softly.

Carl starts the motorbike and passes through the gate, quickly followed by Nathan and, soon after him, by Emily and Parker on the sidecar. Negan follows in on foot. Carl was expecting that – he wants to take the whole thing in. This is definitely something that he wasn’t expecting, both the trailer filled with kids in itself or the whole house-in-the-prairie vibe surrounding it.

“Hey, Gabe,” Carl greets Gabriel, who comes running towards him, quickly followed by the rest of the kids, the moment he sees him, “Everything okay? Where's Montoya?”

“He’s out with the Nurses,” Gabriel answers, standing straight right in front of him. He was a tiny, fragile, pale thing, when Carl found him with the others. Now he’s gaining height, his features are hardening in preparation for puberty and his skin has lost its milky undertone because of the long hours he passes working in the orchard. “They’ll be back any moment now. It's almost sundown.” Then he frowns, “We were expecting you earlier, today.”

“Yeah, I know, sorry, kid,” he smiles, moving closer to Zelda to pick her up in his arms. He likes to hold her – she reminds him of Judith, which he hasn’t seen once since he left Alexandria. Missing her is a sharp pain constantly pinching him between his ribs. He tries to ignore it, treating it as physiologic, every time that he can. But sometimes he likes to poke the pain like he’d poke a wild beast sleeping, for the thrill of it, by holding this other kid who’s not his sister close to his heart, and thinking of how it’d feel like to hold her, instead. “I got held up by the old man over there,” he points at Negan with his chin, “See him?”

Gabriel and the other kids all turn to Negan. The moment Luna detects an external presence that she doesn’t know anything about, she comes closer to Carl and demands to have Zelda back. Carl gives her the kid with a smile, and then proceeds to do the honors.

“Come ‘round, buzzing bees, I wanna introduce you to a very important man. This one you see here with me today is Negan.”

All the kids let out a marveled _oooh_ that makes Negan blink in surprise. He lifts his hand, kind of awkwardly, pointing Lucille against the dusty ground. “Nice to meet you.”

Gabriel comes forward first, standing right in front of Negan. He's so much shorter than him Negan looks like a giant, compared to him, but he faces him proudly, with his hands on his hips. “Mr. Negan,” he says politely, “We expect great things from you. Don't disappoint us.”

Nathan bursts into laughing so hard he almost falls to the ground, and Emily follows him pretty soon, while Parker gets off the sidecar and walks towards the back of the trailer, calling his little helpers, Charlotte and Jasper, two of the smartest kids Carl has ever met in his life, to help him out with some waterpipe fixings.

Carl smirks, one hand of his hip, the other arm straight down his side, as he turns to look at Negan. “See, old man? You have expectations to meet, now. How do you like being truly considered a God?”

*

Carl asked the kids to stay outside of the trailer. They still had some work to do before calling it a night and he promised he’d have something great for them to eat for dinner, so it’s been easy to convince them to stay out of sight for a while. Now he’s sitting at the table inside the trailer, while Negan, still quite baffled by the whole ordeal, uses the kitchenette, as always kept spotlessly clean by Luna, to prepare some tomato sauce.

“Recap it for me once again, kid,” the man says as he stirs the sauce in the pot, and Carl laughs, crossing his legs.

“Are you getting senile or something?”

“No, I just can’t believe what you say is true. I'm hoping hearing it one more time will convince me.”

Carl chuckles, standing up from the chair to walk around the table. He sits on top of it, to be closer to him and watch him as he cooks. Sometimes he thinks there must be some kind of Stockholm Syndrome thing going on between them, because otherwise he couldn’t explain how is it that he now regards as quite tenderly moments that would’ve been absolutely horrifying for anyone else. 

“I found these kids all alone out here and I thought this thing could become my outpost. I helped them out organizing in groups following some sort of bee society mock-up adapted to human beings. Nurse Bees are food and goods providers, they go out and gather things for the kids who stay in. Who are Worker Bees: they mostly stay inside, help around here, tend to the orchard...”

“And the chicken.”

“Yes, that was a nice recent addition,” Carl smiles, “They take care of the house, basically. And then there’s Luna, she’s our Queen Bee. She's in charge of the baby.”

“Yeah, speaking of which,” Negan scoops up some tomato sauce with a wooden spoon and offers it for Carl to taste, “What about the baby? How do you feed her?”

“We scavenge for formula,” Carl answers, tasting the sauce and licking his lips afterwards. It's good – the kids will be happy.

“That’s got to be hard,” Negan comments, turning off the stove under the pot and filling another one with water for the pasta, “The area’s gonna run out of it, sooner or later.”

“That’s a problem for later. For now, there’s still enough. At some point, I’ll come ask for your support, when we earned it.”

“Carl,” Negan puts down the pot on the stove, so hard that some water spills out, and he turns to look at him with eyes that are suddenly so dark Carl struggles to recognize him for a second. “These are children.”

“I’m well aware of it, thank you.”

“Don’t be a smartass with me, not now,” Negan frowns, “You produce more than two of my top outposts together with twenty-six children.”

“This is because there’s a smaller number of people to feed, and they all do their part. Places like Alexandria and the Hilltop produce a lot, but they have to keep a lot for themselves too, because the majority of people there don’t work and the place needs to provide for them too. Here in Neverland, everybody works, everybody produces, so we produce for sixty and we only have to feed less than half of that number. That’s why it works.”

“Yeah, but these are children, and you’re using them as if they were adults,” Negan frowns even deeper, but then he stops, and his expression, from mildly angered, turns an interesting shade of curious. “And you’re not upset about it,” he muses, “You don’t see the wrong in it.”

“I don’t believe there’s wrong in it,” Carl jumps off the table, shrugging, “Twenty-six children, Negan. They would’ve been an unbearable weight for any outpost, even the most productive one. Twenty-six children _and a baby_. Either I put them on production, or anyone would’ve closed their door on them.”

“You know that’s not true. Maggie’s soft heart would have taken ‘em in any day. Your father would’ve managed. Heck, even I wouldn’ve found a way. But you didn’t want them to be taken in, you didn’t want to give them shelter. You wanted to show off.”

“Hey--”

“You wanted to show me something, and you used them.”

Carl purses his lips, watching him silently.

“And you used my name with them. What did you turn me into, Santa Claus or the Bogeyman?”

Carl sighs, passing a hand through his hair, combing them backwards. He hasn’t shown the kids his eye, yet. Naturally, they’ve noticed the eyepatch and they’ve asked about it, but Carl told them he’d have shown them when the right time came and they decided to wait politely until it was his choice.

He realizes now that he was scared about showing Neverland to Negan, just as much as he’s scared about showing his empty socket to the kids. He’s scared of being judged about it, which is why he’d fidgeting, right now.

“You’re angrier than I thought you’d be.”

“I’m not angry,” Negan sighs, turning the stove on and covering the pot to help the water boil, “I’m not even disappointed. You're doing great things here, kid, you’re doing the impossible. But these are children and if it was any other of my men I wouldn’t have problems imagining them exploiting children like this. You, though...” he takes a short pause, “I don’t know. I keep thinking that it seems uncharacteristic of you, so now I’m wondering: did I get everything wrong about you, haven’t I really got a motherfucking fuck about you, or were you just forced by circumstances to do something you’d have never normally done?”

Carl crosses his arms over his chest. He doesn’t like feeling under scrutiny, even though he should’ve known it would’ve happened. “I guess it’s part of both,” he says, “You think you know everything but there are things about me you don’t know. There are things about me that _I_ don’t even know. It makes sense for you not to know them either. Plus, yeah, I was kind of forced by circumstances. I found the kids out here, in this isolated place, and you weren’t gonna give me any outpost to work on... I had to find something and that’s what I found. I worked with what I found. But in all honesty,” he shrugs, “I don’t think I’m exploiting them. I’m treating them like adults. And they appreciate it. They're up for the hard work, Negan, they’re happy about it. They feel strong, in control. They're grateful to me.”

“They don’t know another way.”

“They do,” he nods, “They were with adults before. Two teachers. They protected and nurtured and kept them safe, and then they died and left them to fence for themselves. They trust me because I protect them, yes, but at the same time I prepare them. These kids,” he points his finger to the crowd of children he imagines playing under a blood red sky on the other side of the trailer door, “They go out every day, find their own food and fight walkers by themselves. They're _ready_ , and I did that. I made them ready. I made them useful. And they appreciate that. Can't you?”

It's Negan’s time to watch him silently for a moment, now. He turns around and leans against the stove, crossing his arms on his chest and his legs at the knees, studying him carefully. Then, he exhales. “I do appreciate it,” he nods. “You’re bold as fuck, kid. You've got balls for days. You're completely, utterly crazy, too,” he chuckles, “But I can see where you’re headed with this, and I'll support you.”

Carl can’t hide the smile curling his lips upwards upon hearing those words. “When we’ve earned it,” he says, “We can produce more.”

“You produce enough, shithead,” Negan laughs, dragging him in for a half-hug, “Let me fuckin’ help. At least with formula.”

Carl smirks. He bluffed, before. There's no formula left anywhere in a ten miles radius around the trailer. Now that problem’s fixed, and he can move to fix the next ninety-eight thousand.

“Alright, thanks. We'll accept the formula. But, Negan,” he looks up at him, “You can’t tell anyone about the kids. And you can’t tell anyone where Neverland is. You promised.”

“And I do nothing if not keep my promises, as you damn well know, Carl Grimes,” Negan lets him go, before pressing his cowboy hat down on his head to cover half his face. “You didn’t answer my question, though.”

“Which question?”

“Santa or the Bogeyman?”

Carl laughs, setting the hat straight on his head. “Santa, of course,” he answers, “They respect you. I told them if they proved themselves and the colony worth it, you’d have protected and helped them.”

“And that I’ll do,” Negan says, turning around to walk towards the door. He's eager to meet the kids again, now, Carl can feel it. He wants to charm them – Negan lives for this, and Carl can’t hide the fact that he was hoping precisely for that. 

He wants Neverland to work. He wants these kids to be happy. He wants them strong and confident and satisfied with themselves. Negan can help with that. He has a way to make you feel important for every single thing you do, and Carl’s hoping, down the road, he will work his magic on his buzzing bees, too.

In the meanwhile, he can let them grow accustomed to each other. He's curious to see Negan work with children as he said he did before as a job. He's also curious to see how the kids will react to seeing him as a living and breathing creature, as opposed to the legend Carl has presented them in the past months. He's curious to see how Nathan will react, if he will be jealous when the little group of young admirers he gathered around himself will inevitably switch for Negan, and he’s curious to see what Emily will make of all this, and he can’t wait to see all the myriads of marvelous things Parker will be able to design and build for Neverland once he has Negan’s full and unconditioned support.

He shouldn’t be so positive about the future. He shouldn’t expect too much. If life taught him something, anything at all, is that good things come once you stop hoping for them to happen. 

Still. He's done a good job with his buzzing bees. And he’s done a good job handling Negan about it.

Negan's satisfied with him. He's satisfied with himself.

He can allow himself some daydreaming for a little while.


End file.
